"Settlers, supported by significant funding from US non-profit organisations as well as Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, have demonstrated that some houses were owned by Jews before Israel controlled the territory. The settlers demand to return to these properties and the court system provides them with a legal justification to do so. Palestinians are being forcibly evicted from their homes, often for the third time since 1948.

"While the process has a legal veneer, the application of this precedent is, of course, not extended to Palestinians who wish to return to homes in West Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa which were taken in 1948."

SOME ISRAELI CITIZENS CANNOT LIVE IN THE HOMES THAT THEY OWN!

A present absentee is a Palestinian who fled or was expelled from his home in Palestine by Jewish or Israeli forces, before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but who remained within the area that became the state of Israel. Present absentees are also referred to as internally displaced Palestinians (IDPs). The term applies to the present absentee's descendants too.[1] In 1950 these were 46,000 of the 156,000 Palestinians in Israel.

Present absentees are not permitted to live in the homes they were expelled from, even if they live in the same area, the property still exists, and they can show that they own it. They are regarded as absent by the Israeli government because they left their homes, even if they did not intend to leave them for more than a few days, and even if they did so involuntarily.

Such are the rules set out "BY THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST" and don't forget, this Democracy is THE ONLY MIDDLE EAST NATION THAT ACCEPTS GAYS WITH OPEN ARMs. Point is, the above in caps is used as the excuse to dispel criticism for Israel's undemocratic actions toward its own Palestinian residents past and present.